Hyacinth

Where it grows

Wild hyacinths inhabit rocky hillsides and the edges of cedar forests in Anatolia, the Levant, and northern Iran. Bulb production now centres on the Netherlands, where breeders have developed hundreds of named cultivars, and on smaller specialist fields in northern France and the United Kingdom.

How to recognise it

The bulb sends up a fan of fleshy strap-shaped leaves and a single thick, upright flower stem. Forty or more star-shaped flowers crowd the spike, each with six recurved tepals. The scent is heavy, sweet, and instantly recognisable, with green and slightly aniseed notes.

Garden & cultural uses

Hyacinths are widely forced indoors over Christmas in glass vases or in shallow bowls of pebbles, producing scented blooms in midwinter. In Iran they are one of the symbolic items placed on the Nowruz haft-sin table to mark the spring new year.

In symbolism

Greek myth tells of Hyakinthos, beloved of Apollo, accidentally killed by a discus; the god transformed his blood into the flower. The name lives on in poetry as a token of beauty cut short.